


A Vigil

by insomniac7809



Series: Kathleen Shepard [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Destroy Ending, F/M, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6131377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insomniac7809/pseuds/insomniac7809
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garrus had been sitting for hours. It was silent in the room, aside from the rhythmic beeping of the machines, and the slow, steady sound of Shepard breathing.</p><p>Hell of a way to meet the parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-ME3

Garrus had been sitting for hours. It was silent in the room, aside from the rhythmic beeping of the machines, and the slow, steady sound of Shepard breathing. He had a stack of datapads he was working his way through, with no particular energy.

Sometimes he'd talk to her. Talk about the rebuilding efforts, the news coming in as far-flung systems came in as, piece by piece, what was left of the galaxy started pulling itself together. (The good news. Only the good news. If (when) she woke up, she could hear about the rest.) Joke about the work she was sleeping through, trying to put things back in place or build up from the rubble. How, after facing down galactic extinction, and after her impossible efforts to bring them together to defeat it, the politicians could finally manage to do something together besides posture and shout. A little. On a good day.

Sometimes the others came to visit. As often as they could, he knew. The Reapers were an impossible challenge, but they were straightforward: fight off the machines or die trying. Now every civilization was reeling from the greatest catastrophe they'd seen since the beginning of their history, and making something in its wake was just as much of a struggle. Less shooting and pushing buttons, more negotiations and civil engineering, but everyone had work to do in the aftermath. Williams and Vega came by whenever they were off duty; Tali sent messages; Wrex had visited, once, before he left for the Arlakh system. Chakwas and Lawson kept her stable, did what they could, and monitored her condition remotely. They all had their own responsibilities. 

So did he. He knew it. But here he was.

When he heard footsteps, he knew it wasn't any of the crew. Or any of the orderlies or doctors he'd seen. He almost hoped it was another reporter coming for pictures of Commander Shepard like this, because constant worry and sadness didn't have a face he could hit. 

When he saw her, his first thought was that it was another clone.

Rear Admiral Hannah Shepard had the same sharp jawline, the same hard set to her mouth. The same comfortable air of command. The big eyes were a grey-blue instead of green, her hair was darker and mixed with silver, held in a tight bun instead of bound in a 'pony-tail' in the back (or shaved down to the skin—Shepard barely looked like herself without her fringe). Her face was marked with creases in the same pattern that was just showing on the younger Shepard's face (not that he'd ever mention them to her again—how was he supposed to know?). She was wearing dress blues, hands behind her back, and she took a sudden breath when she saw Garrus at his post.

He knew how to read human faces, better than most turians. He knew how to read the wrinkle at her nose, the curl of her lip. Shepard—his Shepard—made the exact same face, usually at people that had less than a minute to live. Seeing _that_ face make _that_ expression at _him_ hit like a blow.

She held her big, grey eyes on his, not saying a word or moving a muscle, the room silent except for the steady beeping of the machines. Then Shepard's breathing stopped, for just a moment, and both of them turned to focus on the still form on the bed. Until she began to breathe again, and Garrus realized that neither of them had been breathing, either.

“It happens, sometimes.” Garrus broke the silence, watching the Admiral staring at her daughter. Lying there, she looked so small, without the vigor and energy bolstering her frame. “The doctors say it's nothing to worry about.”

Admiral Shepard didn't look at him, just kept fixedly staring at her daughter, watching each breath in and out. “Turian-” 

“Garrus.” 

At that, she looked up at him sharply. “I know who you are.”

“Then you know it's Garrus. Or Vakarian.” His voice was carefully level, down to the subharmonics. Most humans couldn't tell what they meant, but he wasn't about to underestimate a Shepard. “Expert Adviser on the Reaper Threat Vakarian if you're feeling especially formal, but it's a less impressive title than it used to be. No Reaper threat to advise on.”

He could see the readouts on his visor, blood pressure and heart rare elevating, but the Admiral didn't show her anger on her face. She simply met his gaze and began again. “Vakarian, why are you in my daughter's hospital room.”

It actually took him a moment to find an answer. Too many reasons, maybe. Too much to explain. Too easy to play it off. He looked away from the Admiral, making a show of fiddling with the datapad. “I watch her six. Where she goes, I go too. It's what we do.”

Admiral Shepard's eyes moved to the form on the bed, lingered on it, and then looked back to Garrus. “Not that time.”

The datapad was out of his hand, skittering along the ground, before he knew what he was doing. He was standing at his full height, towering over the Admiral, mandibles flared, letting out a high-pitched, wordless scream.

The sight of an enraged turian in a threat display was enough to cow most humans, but Hannah Shepard was smiling, lip curled into that same disgusted expression. “There it is. What you people are, I saw it at Shanxi and when-”

“I've followed Shepard into every kind of hell, you don't get to stand here-”

“-sitting here and they can't tell me if she'll ever-”

“-hadn't dragged me away to the _Normandy_ when-”

“-supposed to keep her safe and now-”

“-parked in place at the science project while Shepard took the weight of the galaxy on her-”

“ **I WANTED HER OUT OF IT.** ”

The room was silent again, except for the steady rhythm of beeps and the sounds of Shepard's slow, undisturbed breathing. Both of them noticed, almost at the same time, the audience they'd acquired. Nurses, patients. One Alliance marine, fully armed and armored, with a look of abject terror on his face. He jerked to a salute when he saw the Admiral looking in his direction.

Admiral Shepard took a deep breath, and returned it. “At ease, Corporal.”

“Ma'am.” He continued to take in the scene with an expression similar to a landed fish. “Is there...? Should I...?”

“A little privacy, please, Corporal.” She didn't need to ask again. He began shooing away the gawkers, giving the war heroes in their tiny room some space for themselves.

Garrus took his place at the corner, a sniper position, eyes on the doors. The Admiral sat, slowly, by the bed. Shepard, the only person in the wing unaware of what had just happened around her, was perfectly still, breathing steadily, in and out.

\------

“...the final run to the beam. She and Liara had to hold me up. Shepard called in the Normandy to evacuate..” ( _me_ ) “anyone who was still alive. I tried to follow her, but I could barely stand. And she...”

( _You gotta get out of here!_ ) 

( _And you've got to be **kidding** me._ )

( _No matter what happens here..._ )

“If she—when she wakes up, I can show her my new scars. We'll make it a contest... which she'll win.”

Hannah Shepard gave a short, strangled little laugh. “She does make a habit of it.”

“She does that.” There was once she didn't. Just once. ( _I'm Garrus Vakarian, and THIS-_ )

“I knew for years she was going to enlist. But I'd hoped she could find a posting on a ship, in an office. Serving in some way that didn't mean dodging bullets her entire adult life. Following her father's footsteps to an early grave. I tried to convince her, more than once, but...”

Garrus gave a low laugh of his own. “I can't imagine fighting her was ever easy.”

“No. No, she never would let people stand in her way. Even the people who loved her. Even when we only wanted to keep her safe.” The expression on her face wasn't quite anything he'd seen on Shepard before. It was something like sad, and something like proud, at the same time. “Being safe because it was someone else on the front lines never sat well with Kathleen.”

He just shook his head. “That will never not be strange to hear.”

“She does have a first name, Vakarian.”

“Of course she does. It's 'Commander.' Ask anyone.”

Admiral Shepard shook her head. “Why are you here, Vakarian? A real answer, this time. There's nothing you can do. Nothing either of us can do.”

He let out a slow breath. “Maybe it's a vigil. Maybe it's something I do to myself for leaving her then. Maybe it's just so that if—when—she wakes up, she won't be alone in a clean room, abandoned by the galaxy and surrounded by strangers. Not this time.”

Hannah was quiet again. Calm. Pulse normal, breathing slower than usual. “David spoke well of you, you know.”

Garrus didn't speak. To that, he didn't have anything to say.

“I never understood how he could forgive your people for Shanxi. Respect I understood, but the admiration, the-”

“I had an uncle,” Garrus cut in. “Solaxus. Medical officer aboard the _Amitiria_. I can't even remember him, I was to young. But people who knew him then say my father was never the same. After.”

“I'm... I'm sorry. For your loss.”

“Sorry your people shot her down?”

“No. But even so.”

“Thank you.”

The beeping machines kept their time through the next silence, until Hannah spoke again. “Well. I suppose I can't really blame her for running off with some hothead with a gun. Terrible taste in men must run in the family.”

“If it makes you feel better, when I first met Shepard, she called me 'turian' and insinuated I was working with Saren. She came around.”

Admiral Shepard looked at her daughter again in the low light. She reached a hand around her daughter's, and didn't cry. The same, the _exact same_ sort of not crying that Shepard had done after Tuchanka. After Thane. After the Bahak system. After seeing what was left of Arcturus Station. After Virmire, if Garrus had known what to look for.

Shepards didn't cry, but a Shepard who wasn't crying wasn't the same thing as a Shepard who was _not crying_.

Admiral Shepard _didn't cry_ for a moment more before she spoke. “Do you know how many times I've thought that I'd lost her? When word first came back from Akuze. When the _Normandy_ was shot down, when she was gone for two years. And then this war, losing Earth with her on it. I know we were never... I was always so busy. So was she. But I still should have... I tried not to worry, but... I worried, so much, every day...”

Garrus almost thought she'd forgotten he was there, until she turned her head to face him again. “Whatever you do to my daughter, I'll do to you, Vakarian. If you hurt her, I will hurt you in ways you can't imagine. If you let her get hurt again, there is nowhere in the galaxy you will be able to hide.”

“Unless the Alliance locks her up again, if you're looking for me, I'll be at her six. Whether that means fighting off impossible odds or force-feeding her hospital food.”

Hannah Shepard smiled at that, just a little. She put a hand on her daughter's face, where the oxygen mask met pale skin. She _didn't cry_.

And it was silent in the room, aside from the rhythmic beeping of the machines, and the slow, steady sound of Shepard breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Mass Effect kink meme. Quote prompt "whatever you do do my daughter, I'll do to you."


End file.
